This book follows various political and economic stories, and deals with topics which include comedy, cars, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks.

    From modest origins, the Habsburgs gained control of the Holy Roman Empire in the fifteenth century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe, stretching from Hungary to Spain, and parts of the New World and the Far East. The Habsburgs continued to dominate Central Europe through the First World War.Historians often depict the Habsburgs as leaders of a ramshackle empire. But Rady reveals their enduring power, driven by the belief that they were destined to rule the world as defenders of the Roman Catholic Church, guarantors of peace, and patrons of learning. The Habsburgs is the definitive history of a remarkable dynasty that forever changed Europe and the world.

    Some of them still exist today, devoted to charitable works. The Monks of War is the first general history of these orders to have appeared since the eighteenth century. The Templars, the Hospitallers (later Knights of Malta), the Teutonic Knights, and the Knights of the Spanish and Portuguese orders were 'noblemen vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience, living a monastic life in convents which were at the same time barracks, waging war on the enemies of the Cross'. The first properly disciplined Western troops since Roman times, they played a major role in defending the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem, in the 'Baltic Crusades' which created Prussia, in the long reconquest of Spain from the Moors, and in fighting the 'Infidel' right up to Napoleonic times. This celebrated book tells the whole enthralling story, recreating such epics as the sieges of Rhodes and Malta and the destruction of the Templars by the Inquisition. Acclaimed on publication, it has now been revised and updated, with a concluding chapter to take events into the 1990s.

    Massie has written a richly textured and gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century's first great arms race. Massie brings to vivid life, such historical figures as the single-minded Admiral von Tirpitz, the young, ambitious, Winston Churchill, the ruthless, sycophantic Chancellor Bernhard von Bulow, and many others. Their story, and the story of the era, filled with misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and events leading to unintended conclusions, unfolds like a Greek tratedy in his powerful narrative. Intimately human and dramatic, DREADNOUGHT is history at its most riveting.

    When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.

    Was he a monster, driven by an endless, ruinous quest for military glory? Or a social and political visionary brought down by petty, reactionary kings of Europe? In the most definitive account to date, respected historian Charles Esdaile argues that the chief motivating factor for Napoleon was his insatiable desire for fame. More than a myth-busting portrait of Napoleon, however, this volume offers a panoramic view of the armed conflicts that spread so quickly out of revolutionary France to countries as remote as Sweden and Egypt. Napoleon's Wars seeks to answer the question, What was it that made the countries of Europe fight one another for so long and with such devastating results? Esdaile portrays the European battles as the consequence of rulers who were willing to take the immense risks of either fighting or supporting Napoleon—risks that resulted in the extinction of entire countries. This is history writing equal to its subject—grand and ambitious.

    There's the man who survived the atomic bomb in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there's many, many more.Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the female Robinson Crusoe, Hitler's final hours, Japan's deadly balloon bomb and the emperor of the United States, these tales deserve to be told.

     It was the heyday of this great city. Between November 1919 and September 1939, many of this century's most sensational events in politics, the arts, theatre, cinema and night life took place in Berlin, where vulgarity and greatness lived side by side. High culture, epitomized in the works of Brecht, Max Reinhardt and Erwin Piscator, was matched by the city's glamorously decadent night-life. Part-politicized and part-criminal clubs thrived, the cabaret of political life sharing the same colour and exoticism as the city's underworld elements. Anton Gill expertly describes both the political and cultural history of Berlin through those historic years. He sketches the characters of scientists, actors and actresses, composers, conductors, painters and businessmen in an era which is arguably the nearest thing to a Renaissance revival the 20th century has seen. Combining outstanding erudition with a compelling narrative, ‘A Dance Between Flames’ offers a consistently fascinating overview of a key period in Germany’s troubled history. ‘A permanently useful handbook...can be dipped into for facts or impressions about all aspects of this dynamo of a town during its most influential decades’ – Independent>/b> ‘Immensely informative and readable...Gill fills in the political history of Berlin between the wars with brilliantly evocative passages describing the cultural scene in theatre, opera, cinema, architecture, cafés and clubs’ – Stephen Spender in The Times Anton Gill has been a freelance writer since 1984, specialising in European contemporary history but latterly branching out into historical fiction. He is the winner of the H H Wingate Award for non-fiction for his study of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, ‘The Journey Back From Hell’.

    Verbatim reports of speeches by leaders, and comments of bystanders—set against an idealized backdrop of the proletariat united with soldiers, sailors, and peasants—are balanced by passionate narratives describing the fall of the provisional government, the assault on the Winter Palace, and Lenin's seizure of power.Accompanied by contemporaneous photographs, this gripping record by a western journalist has been acclaimed worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Endorsed by Lenin as a "truthful and most vivid exposition," the work was the basis for the Academy Award-winning 1981 film Reds.

    Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.

    Since its first publication, Hugh Thomas's The Spanish Civil War has become established as the definitive one-volume history of a conflict that continues to provoke intense controversy today.What was it that roused left-wing sympathizers from all over the world to fight against Franco between 1936 and 1939? Why did the British and US governments refuse to intervene? And why did the Republican cause collapse so violently? Now revised and updated, Hugh Thomas's classic account presents the most objective and unbiased analysis of a passionate struggle where fascism and democracy, communism and Catholicism were at stake - and which was as much an international war as a Spanish one.

    David Abulafia's The Great Sea is the first complete history of the Mediterranean, from the erection of temples on Malta around 3500 BC to modern tourism. Ranging across time and the whole extraordinary space of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Jaffa, Genoa to Tunis, and bringing to life pilgrims, pirates, sultans and naval commanders, this is the story of the sea that has shaped much of world history.

    This narrative captures the perspectives of leading politicians and war commanders, journalists, civilians, and ordinary soldiers, offering gripping eyewitness accounts of heroism, defeat, suffering, and triumph. This is one of the first historical studies of World War II that describes the Holocaust as an integral part of the war. It also covers maneuvers, strategies, and leaders operating in European, Asian, and Pacific theatres. In addition, this book brings in survivor testimonies of occupation, survival behind enemy lines, and the experience of minority groups such as the Roma in Europe, to offer a comprehensive account of the war’s impact on individuals on both sides. This is a sweeping narrative of one of the most deadly wars in history, which took almost forty million lives, and irrevocably changed countless more.

    Jesse dies for a living, literally. Because of a neurological disorder, she is one of the rare people who can serve as a death surrogate, dying so others don't have to.Although each death replacement is different, the result is the same: a life is saved, and Jesse resurrects days later with sore muscles, new scars, and another hole in her memory. But when Jesse is murdered and becomes the sole suspect in a federal investigation, more than her freedom and sanity are at stake. She must catch the killer herself—or die trying. Dying by the Hour — Book 2Jesse Sullivan and Ally Gallagher are famous thanks to their recent kidnapping and brush with death. They have scars, but they’re breathing, and that’s more than the other victims can say. Yet while they try to settle back into their routine, saving lives through Jesse’s rare ability, neither can quite shake the feeling that the danger hasn’t truly passed. Then another death replacement agent goes missing, and Jesse may be the only one who can find her. Dying for Her — Book 3James T. Brinkley was honorably discharged from the military after a fatal mistake changed his life—and took another.As an agent, Brinkley has devoted his life to protecting the vulnerable while trying to atone for his own sins. At the center of his quest for redemption lies Jesse Sullivan, a young woman whose past, present, and future depend on the decisions he makes now. One wrong move and he’ll deliver her right into the hands of the sadist killer who hunts her. Dying Light — Book 4Jesse Sullivan’s father is a sadistic murder with plans to rule the world. Given his ability to control minds and teleport at will, it seems his dark vision is coming to fruition. All that stands in his way is Jesse.Yet no matter how badly he has hurt her and the ones she loves, Jesse can’t seem to forget he is her father. She must somehow forget the man she remembers from her childhood and see him for the monster he truly is.And she almost can…until he offers her the one thing she can’t refuse. Worth Dying For — Book 5Jesse Sullivan's father commands a dark and terrible army under the guise of beloved church leader. Jesse and her friends must hide deep undercover for fear of arrest or murder by his faithful followers. Their every move brings risk of discovery.And when your enemy can control minds and teleport at will, there isn't a single place in the world where you can hide... Dying Breath — Book 6Maisie Caldwell knows she won’t live to see her seventeenth birthday. Her mother and sister are locked in a war over the world, and Maisie is stuck between them. She must decide if she will join her sister Jesse’s cause and save the world, even if that means betraying her mother.Jesse needs to find her father’s body and finish him before he can resurrect. If she succeeds she will save millions, if not billions, of lives. But first, Jesse must defeat the woman protecting him. Maisie’s decision will make or break all they’ve worked so hard to protect. Dying Day — Book 7Jesse Sullivan has defeated her father and saved the world from his dark machinations. But as the beloved face of The Unified Church, his death has made him a martyr and now his murderer is public enemy number one. But it isn’t the countless government agencies and freelance assassins who want Jesse’s head that she should fear. It is the powerful entity who’s come to reclaim the world she has stolen from him.

    Based in part on previously classified documents, Patricia Posner exposes Capesius’s reign of terror at the camp, his escape from justice, fueled in part by his theft of gold ripped from the mouths of corpses, and how a handful of courageous survivors and a single brave prosecutor finally brought him to trial for murder twenty years after the end of the war. The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is much more, though, than a personal account of Capesius. It provides a spellbinding glimpse inside the devil’s pact made between the Nazis and Germany’s largest conglomerate, I.G. Farben, and its Bayer pharmaceutical subsidiary. The story is one of murder and greed with its roots in the dark heart of the Holocaust. It is told through Nazi henchmen and industrialists turned war criminals, intelligence agents and zealous prosecutors, and intrepid concentration camp survivors and Nazi hunters. Set against a backdrop ranging from Hitler’s war to conquer Europe to the Final Solution to postwar Germany’s tormented efforts to confront its dark past, Posner shows the appalling depths to which ordinary men descend when they are unrestrained by conscience or any sense of morality. The Pharmacist of Auschwitz is a moving saga that lingers long after the final page.